* [PATCH v2] mm/huge_memory: fix a folio_split() race condition with folio_try_get()
@ 2026-03-02 20:31 Zi Yan
0 siblings, 0 replies; only message in thread
From: Zi Yan @ 2026-03-02 20:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Andrew Morton
Cc: David Hildenbrand, Lorenzo Stoakes, Zi Yan, Hugh Dickins,
Baolin Wang, Liam R. Howlett, Nico Pache, Ryan Roberts, Dev Jain,
Barry Song, Lance Yang, Matthew Wilcox, Bas van Dijk, Eero Kelly,
Andrew Battat, Adam Bratschi-Kaye, linux-mm, linux-kernel,
linux-fsdevel, stable
During a pagecache folio split, the values in the related xarray should not
be changed from the original folio at xarray split time until all
after-split folios are well formed and stored in the xarray. Current use
of xas_try_split() in __split_unmapped_folio() lets some after-split folios
show up at wrong indices in the xarray. When these misplaced after-split
folios are unfrozen, before correct folios are stored via __xa_store(), and
grabbed by folio_try_get(), they are returned to userspace at wrong file
indices, causing data corruption. More detailed explanation is at the
bottom.
The reproducer is at: https://github.com/dfinity/thp-madv-remove-test
It
1. creates a memfd,
2. forks,
3. in the child process, maps the file with large folios (via shmem code
path) and reads the mapped file continuously with 16 threads,
4. in the parent process, uses madvise(MADV_REMOVE) to punch poles in the
large folio.
Data corruption can be observed without the fix. Basically, data from a
wrong page->index is returned.
Fix it by using the original folio in xas_try_split() calls, so that
folio_try_get() can get the right after-split folios after the original
folio is unfrozen.
Uniform split, split_huge_page*(), is not affected, since it uses
xas_split_alloc() and xas_split() only once and stores the original folio
in the xarray. Change xas_split() used in uniform split branch to use
the original folio to avoid confusion.
Fixes below points to the commit introduces the code, but folio_split() is
used in a later commit 7460b470a131f ("mm/truncate: use folio_split() in
truncate operation").
More details:
For example, a folio f is split non-uniformly into f, f2, f3, f4 like
below:
+----------------+---------+----+----+
| f | f2 | f3 | f4 |
+----------------+---------+----+----+
but the xarray would look like below after __split_unmapped_folio() is
done:
+----------------+---------+----+----+
| f | f2 | f3 | f3 |
+----------------+---------+----+----+
After __split_unmapped_folio(), the code changes the xarray and unfreezes
after-split folios:
1. unfreezes f2, __xa_store(f2)
2. unfreezes f3, __xa_store(f3)
3. unfreezes f4, __xa_store(f4), which overwrites the second f3 to f4.
4. unfreezes f.
Meanwhile, a parallel filemap_get_entry() can read the second f3 from the
xarray and use folio_try_get() on it at step 2 when f3 is unfrozen. Then,
f3 is wrongly returned to user.
After the fix, the xarray looks like below after __split_unmapped_folio():
+----------------+---------+----+----+
| f | f | f | f |
+----------------+---------+----+----+
so that the race window no longer exists.
Fixes: 00527733d0dc8 ("mm/huge_memory: add two new (not yet used) functions for folio_split()")
Signed-off-by: Zi Yan <ziy@nvidia.com>
Reported-by: Bas van Dijk <bas@dfinity.org>
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAKNNEtw5_kZomhkugedKMPOG-sxs5Q5OLumWJdiWXv+C9Yct0w@mail.gmail.com/
Tested-by: Lance Yang <lance.yang@linux.dev>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
---
mm/huge_memory.c | 15 +++++++++++----
1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
diff --git a/mm/huge_memory.c b/mm/huge_memory.c
index 56db54fa48181..f0bdac3f270b5 100644
--- a/mm/huge_memory.c
+++ b/mm/huge_memory.c
@@ -3647,6 +3647,7 @@ static int __split_unmapped_folio(struct folio *folio, int new_order,
const bool is_anon = folio_test_anon(folio);
int old_order = folio_order(folio);
int start_order = split_type == SPLIT_TYPE_UNIFORM ? new_order : old_order - 1;
+ struct folio *old_folio = folio;
int split_order;
/*
@@ -3668,11 +3669,17 @@ static int __split_unmapped_folio(struct folio *folio, int new_order,
* irq is disabled to allocate enough memory, whereas
* non-uniform split can handle ENOMEM.
*/
- if (split_type == SPLIT_TYPE_UNIFORM)
- xas_split(xas, folio, old_order);
- else {
+ if (split_type == SPLIT_TYPE_UNIFORM) {
+ xas_split(xas, old_folio, old_order);
+ } else {
xas_set_order(xas, folio->index, split_order);
- xas_try_split(xas, folio, old_order);
+ /*
+ * use the to-be-split folio, so that a parallel
+ * folio_try_get() waits on it until xarray is
+ * updated with after-split folios and
+ * the original one is unfrozen.
+ */
+ xas_try_split(xas, old_folio, old_order);
if (xas_error(xas))
return xas_error(xas);
}
--
2.51.0
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